Hello and welcome to Open Access, an online magazine and archive project dedicated to providing readers with a window inside the creative incubator of the Lucas Artists Residency Program at Montalvo Arts Center.

Open Access will feature weekly posts highlighting Lucas Artist Fellow’s most recent inquires and explorations, works in process, developing collaborations, and completed projects and programs. Sometimes it may simply draw a curtain on a lively evening dinner conversation.

Designed as a platform for you to engage deeply in the ongoing creative processes of our resident fellows, Open Access features videos, photo essays, interviews, and articles. We invite you to follow artists’ creative journeys while in residence, and to track their work and achievements once they depart. As our list of contributors grows, we will add new voices, including resident artists, scholars and curators, as well as invited writers.

It is our pleasure, as we move into our second decade of the Lucas Artists Residency Program, to provide ever more transparency to the work, ideas, explorations and developments happening in within our facilities on a daily basis.​We hope you will check in, subscribe and enjoy!

What is the Lucas Artists Program?Housed within Montalvo Arts Center, a 175 acre public park in the Santa Cruz foothills, and in the heart of the Silicon Valley, the Sally and Don Lucas Artists Residency Program (LAP) is a creative incubator dedicated to supporting the creative process for artists from all creative disciplines and geographical locations. The LAP encourages the creation of new and adventurous works, supports risk taking, collaboration and cross-disciplinary investigation of contemporary issues. It's also a cultural producer and presenter, continually seeking new ways to engage the public in the artistic process and works of its Artist Fellows.

What are Open Access Events?Join us as we present a series of fun-filled interdisciplinary gatherings at Montalvo. Most months, our offerings are a bite-sized artistic sampler, featuring an array of activities that reflect the multidisciplinary approach of the LAP and the work of its diverse Artist Fellows. These include a combination of

music and dance performances

gallery exhibition previews

readings

salon-style conversations

culinary demonstrations

hands-on art-making activities

and more!

And at least twice a year, the series broadens to become a large-scale outdoor festival.